FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks Online

I recommend FreshBooks to anyone running a service-based business that needs invoicing, time reporting, and accounting tools. FB is adept in all three of these scenarios and isn't overly complicated like similar accounting packages I have used. I love how I can write estimates and proposals, manage the business development process from the software, and quickly convert prospects to invoiced clients.

Incentivized

It seems Intuit is more interested in generating revenue than taking care of their customers. After only 28 (working) days using it, I've had to call for Help 23 times, and, in my experience, only spoken to 2 people who had an understanding of basic accounting practices and the ramifications of some of their suggested fixes on the General Ledger.

Incentivized

• Invoicing - FreshBooks basically ensures our accountants spend less time on invoices via its automated invoicing system, which sends invoices to our customers and clients alike and also send them regular reminders for them to pay up their bills.
• Collecting business insights - FreshBooks enable our company analysts measure our business performances via data reports provided by FreshBooks' intuitive dashboard. Allowing us do a comparative analysis of key business metrics of a current month against past months and determine if the business is growing.
• Expense tracker - We have recently embraced FreshBooks as an expense tracker for teams at our company branch. Thusfar, FreshBooks has performed very well, making our expense management a perfect operation; ensuring teams do not exceed their planned budget and also eliminating the need for tracking expenses on excel spreadsheets.

Incentivized

• It enables me to do a P&L for each specific program as requested by the county for the grant money that they give us.
• It enables me to do [an] organizational budget as well as a budget for each specific program
• It enables the accountant and the auditor access at any time for transparency

Incentivized

• I can brand invoices with my business logo, but I might like to change colours of the invoices themselves to match the rest of my business documents. That isn't a major point at all, but it's something that I'd like to see.
• Freshbooks doesn't remember the categories that similar expenses were previously assigned to. It would be nice if Freshbooks would suggest a category for an already saved vendor, to ensure the consistency of expense reporting.
• The home page of a Freshbooks account has a great graph display of expenses and income, but it only shows the last 6 months. This is still very useful, but I'd like to be able to see this kind of graph for different periods of time.

• The budgets feature leaves a lot be desired - difficult and clunky to populate and maintain.
• Reporting for Budget vs Actual is available but the ability to reforecast based on updated data is not.
• The rules function to default common types of expenses isn't perfect and will get confused if like amounts or a number of similar items present.

Incentivized

At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.

It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.

Incentivized

FreshBooks is very easy to use even for novices. If you're looking for an online accounting software that is full of features, has great aesthetics and is user-friendly, then this is definitely the software for you. I've been using it for several years now and despite being tempted to switch by other vendors, I like the feel of FreshBooks and it's mobile features.

Incentivized

While QuickBooks Online is generally easy to navigate, there are some features and functions that often require a Google search in order to find out where they are actually hidden. Additionally, there are some simple customization features that are surprisingly not available for an otherwise advanced program (e.g. only having a pool of 4 fonts to choose from, only having 4 very limited templates for invoicing, not color selection, etc). While I would say that about 75% of users shouldn't have a problem finding their way around with basic functions, there is a learning curve if you want to be able to dive into some of the more useful features, almost to the point that you need to have a dedicated account manager in order to use QuickBooks Online most effectively.

Incentivized

FreshBooks is easy to use and always works!

Incentivized

We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.

Incentivized

There are tab issues. When I tab the field doesn't highlight and I have to backspace or delete what is in the field. Happens on the memo field and sometimes other fields. Very time consuming.

Incentivized

I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.

Incentivized

Support is great, all incidents been resolved. Quickbooks Online forum is very well organized and helpful. I like the fact that they let the community contribute in resolving issues. Most or many of your answers can be found online. You can also get help on YouTube, but the easiest way to get assistance is through their chat system.

I haven't changed my mind since my first evaluation. Freshbooks is still meeting my needs, easy to use, etc.

The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations

Incentivized

FreshBooks does very well in comparison, especially since it is free software for Barclays bank users. Sage software is much worse than FreshBooks. However, Xero and QuickBooks, the market leaders, are still ahead with usability, additional features, reporting, and connection with third-party software providers. We chose FreshBooks as it does everything we require from this type of software.

Incentivized

I have used Wave Accounting for another business. I selected QuickBooks Online over Wave because of the features available from QuickBooks. Wave is great since it is free, but I feel that paying for QuickBooks Online is worth it for the features. In addition there is such a robust support network and training available for QuickBooks.

Incentivized

As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere

Incentivized

• In reality, we do not implement all of its use at the moment in order to determine an adequate ROI.
• In our approach to the use of the system, it seems to us a considerable time saving by achieving the integration of the Mexican subsidiary with its parent located in the US.
• Financial reports meet the necessary USGAAP requirements.

Incentivized

• It has created a lot of cost and in-efficiency whenever we need to talk to support.
• I spent a lot of time setting up their automatic reminders for past due invoices and it worked for a couple of months and then it stopped. It's currently being worked on by their tech team but it has been months and it is still not working. It would have saved me a lot of time.
• Their multi-currency saves time in sending invoices abroad but it's limiting when a customer wants an invoice in USD instead of a foreign currency so I have to set up different customer accounts for different currencies.